


Day 26: Before They Met – The Undiminished Spark

by 221b_hound



Series: Techienician: Botanical Love [27]
Category: Dredd (2012), Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: 30 Days of Techienician, Hope, M/M, Past Abuse, Techienician
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-27
Updated: 2016-09-27
Packaged: 2018-08-18 03:41:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8147960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: Before there was Matt-and-Techie, there were two men fighting to remain themselves; to nurse an ember - and hungry for hope.





	

It takes a certain kind of hope to escape from hell into the unknown. Hope that this hell is not actually the best it will ever be; hope that somewhere out there is at the least a better kind of hell.

It takes a certain kind of trust to decide that not only escape but survival is possible.

It takes a spark that has somehow survived all that has been done to quench it, which burns low but undiminished.

It takes the fragile knowledge that you have endured all that you have endured not because you deserved your pain, but because others liked to inflict it. 

When the lawmen offered Techie mercy and opened the door into a yawning unknown, it took all that hope, trust, fragile knowledge and that undiminished spark to find courage, step into the void and run into its embrace. 

It takes a different kind of courage to face the hell inside your own self.

It takes hope and trust, fragile knowledge and that undiminished ember, to see the violence you have feared and hated has the potential to manifest inside yourself.

It takes all of those things and that very peculiar kind of courage to then be determined to control it. 

When Matt was a boy, slow and careful of thought, tangled of tongue despite all that care, others made fun of him. Inarticulate, his frustration combined with his size and strength that was expressed in burning rage and, sometimes, in fists.

Then one day, goaded beyond endurance about being fatherless and lumpish and stupid, he lost his temper. He hit a mean-spirited lad hard, spraying blood and pain.

Matt ran into the wild park and hid for three days, nursing a bleeding, bruised hand and grief that he could be the thing he most feared – the brutal hand of the kind of men who sometimes hit his mother, as she looked to them for love. 

Eventually, his mother found him and took him home. By then, cold and hungry and sore and sorry, he’d made his decision.

No matter how frustrated he got. No matter how mad. No matter if he shouted and stormed. He’d never hit anyone else again.

He never has. Instead, he has hurt himself. He's kicked metal tools and boxes, hurting his feet. He's punched walls and doors, hurting his hand. He's belted his own ribs and his own arms and his own legs to let out that fearful angry pain, and left bruises on himself – but never on another person.

He doesn’t even do that anymore, because in hurting himself to keep himself from hurting others, Matt frightened the one person who is the hope, the trust, the brightest spark in his life. Matt would never do even that much harm to the man he loves.

But it’s all right, because he’s given up rage anyway. Techie has taught him new ways of channelling frustration and hurt. Techie helps him not to be mad in the first place. Techie has taught him he has power besides his physical strength, and that he’s not alone any more. 

And Techie? He ran into the void and found instead a world full to the brim. So full it filled him to the top, too. So full he can give and give and give and never be empty, because his Matt takes every gift and gives it back tenfold.


End file.
